DiscoverTheNetworks

DiscoverTheNetworks (DTN) is a database/search website meant to track "the left" and terrorists, with an implicit connection between the two, with some similarities to SourceWatch. It is a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. DiscoverTheNetworks was launched on February 15, 2005, but Horowitz claims it was two-years under development. The About Us section explains, DTN:


 * is a "Guide to the Political Left." It identifies the individuals and organizations that make up the left and also the institutions that fund and sustain it; it maps the paths through which the left exerts its influence on the larger body politic; it defines the left's (often hidden) programmatic agendas and it provides an understanding of its history and ideas.

It continues:
 * By browsing this database, and familiarizing oneself with the agendas of the individuals and organizations it contains, with the scope of their activities and with the tens of millions of dollars available to support them, a user of this base will find ample evidence for the existence of this left and for the fact that it is a major player in the political destinies of the nation. (See in particular the organizations and individuals associated with ANTI-WAR groups and The Shadow Party.) The movement to protest the war in Iraq reconfigured the presidential campaign of 2004 and has affected American policy not only in Iraq but in the War on Terror generally. It has changed the face of the Democratic Party and of American politics in general. What is the nature of this '??anti-war'? movement, who are its leaders, and what are its agendas? The scope and features of this database allow for definitive answers to these questions. ...The database also provides group profiles of the organizations engaged in organizing opposition to the Patriot Act, as well as to frontline homeland security defenses such as border control (GROUPS/IMMIGRATION) and the linkages between them. Following the network of these organizations and individuals through the base reveals that they have agendas and perspectives that range far beyond the legal issues themselves and are rooted in their radical opposition to the American status quo. These agendas are anti-corporate and socialist.

DTN copies the Campus Watch formula, but is applied to the broader political movement, as the About Us section explains:
 * Other concerns are certain to be raised that we will not regard as legitimate but rather as veiled expressions of distress over the factual information revealed on the site. A cry of such distress has already greeted a perfectly reasonable database called Campus Watch, provided by the Middle East Forum. This site records and analyzes the views of leftwing academics concerning terrorism in the Islamic world, views that can fairly be described as apologetic and even sympathetic to the radical Islamist cause. Critics of Campus Watch, many of them with views identical to those reviewed on the site, have claimed that the very enterprise of posting such critical reviews is '??McCarthyism'? and an Internet '??witch-hunt'.? Such responses reflect an anti-intellectual attitude that seeks to embargo the political debate before it takes place.

Overall, DTN is a Smear Portal on academics, journalists, and activists on the left. It is a website where all the smears and red baiting that can be found in FrontPageMag, Campus Watch, and similar-ilk-organizations are put under one roof for "research".

Smear Portal
The DTN website contains a section on individuals, and states: "This section examines activists for leftwing agendas and causes, radical egalitarians, and opponents of American 'imperialism' ". It applies a smearing by association to the well known "leftists". Namely, DTN provides a list of leftists and intersperses the names/photos of demonized "terrorists" or people the neo-cons love to hate. For example, the first person on the list is "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" (a demonized terrorist) and next to him is Al Sharpton. It continues, Dennis Kucinich, Fidel Castro, George Soros, Harold Ickes, Howard Dean, Jane Fonda, Jesse Jackson, Jim McDermott, etc. Guilt by association is implied, but there isn'??t any association between many of the people on the list. The only thing that is attempted here is to smear some of the individuals involved, implying that there is an association with unsavory terrorists - although they forgot to add OBL! NB: DTN considers John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi as leftists, thus its remit is rather wide.

Noam Chomsky's DTN profile reveals further the bias of the author and director of this website. Most of the smears, misrepresentation and abuse in this section derive from David Horowitz's The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky, The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky, Part II: Method and Madness, etc. There is a long list of articles of a similar nature by the likes of Horowitz, Peter Collier, Elliot Jager, Bruce Thornton, Anders G. Lewis, Benjamin Kerstein, Paul Crespo etc.

Just like Campus Watch, DTN has targetd individuals critical of Israel. The Issues section of the website lists The Middle East, and it ports much of the material available on Campus Watch and Middle East Forum.

Leftists that DTN loves to hate:

 * Noam Chomsky
 * Michael Moore
 * Cornel West
 * Ward Churchill
 * Cynthia McKinney

Personnel and writers

 * David Horowitz, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
 * John Perazzo, Content Editor
 * Genesio Zenone, Design, Web Construction
 * David Dennick, web assistant
 * Joel Mowbray, Consultant

Researchers & Writers

 * Lowell Ponte
 * Richard Poe
 * Mike Bauer
 * Jacob Laksin
 * Karen Hickey
 * Roberta Leguizamon
 * Joe Wilson
 * Thomas Ryan
 * Joe Kaufman
 * Lisa Makson
 * Claude Cartaginese
 * Jeff Wiener
 * Greg Yardley
 * Kevin Beckman
 * Larry Cott
 * Lee Kaplan
 * Anders G. Lewis

Source viewed February 16, 2005.

Affiliations

 * Campus Watch
 * FrontPage

Contact details
Web: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org

External articles

 * Kurt Nimmo, "DiscoverTheNetwork: David Horowitz's Smear Portal", February 15, 2005.